6.3 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.3 |
Follows a pair of married couples, Alfie and Helena, and their daughter Sally and husband Roy, as their passions, ambitions, and anxieties lead them into trouble and out of their minds. After Alfie leaves Helena to pursue his lost youth and a free-spirited call girl named Charmaine , Helena abandons rationality and surrenders her life to the loopy advice of a charlatan fortune teller. Unhappy in her marriage, Sally develops a crush on her handsome art gallery owner boss, while Roy, a novelist nervously awaiting the response to his latest manuscript, becomes moonstruck over a mystery woman who catches his gaze through a nearby window.
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Freida Pinto, Naomi WattsDrama | 100% |
Romance | 59% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 3.0
French: DTS-HD Master Audio 3.0
English, English SDH, French
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
BD-Live
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Sometimes the illusions work better than the medicine.
Woody Allen is a director who specializes in the Social Comedy with modern sensibilities, placing big-city characters and their very private lives on
display for a laugh but for no real reason other than that he can and, well, because he's made some pretty good films and made quite a name for
himself through the follies of unique characters struggling through crises of their own making and wondering why their world is in a constant state of
personal and interpersonal flux. Allen's characters seem to thrive on personal drama and his films, then, are like an eye into the world of the socially
fashionable but at the same time personally inept, and there's no film in which such drama is on display to a greater extent than in his latest picture,
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. A modern day anti-Fairy tale with the hope of a happily-ever-after ending but with the realization -- for the
audience, anyway -- that "the end" is really just the start of another loop in the unending cycle of human chaos, the film is pure Allen, even if it does
take a jaunt over to London and leaves behind the director's trademark New York setting but doesn't lose the wit and charm that's made his movie a
success with audiences who look to Allen for over-the-top drama and slightly out-of-whack "real people" characters.
As advertised...the meeting of a tall dark stranger.
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger debuts on Blu-ray with a fine 1080p Blu-ray transfer that's only as good as Allen's photography allows it to be. Technically, the transfer is just about perfect; there's no evidence of banding, print damage, blocking, noise reduction, or other troublesome no-no's, but Allen's overly warm palette and generally bland façade don't make for an eye-candy sort of Blu-ray. Indeed, colors take a heavy push towards a red/orange tone, which is carried over into the flesh tones; characters often look like they've spent far too much time out in the sun. Still, brighter shades -- purple flowers, London's red-sided double-decker buses -- are handled nicely and stand out as fairly natural in shading. Detail is adequate but far from extraordinary; the fim isn't abundantly sharp by its very nature, and the result is the appearance of softer details. Nevertheless, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger takes on an honest film-like look; grain is moderately heavy and present throughout. Blacks are stable and the image manages to produce a fair sense of depth. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger isn't a gorgeous film and the resultant Blu-ray isn't demo-worthy, but it appears to be an accurate representation of Woody Allen's vision.
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger features a fairly odd audio offering: a DTS-HD MA 3.0 lossless soundtrack. Foregoing the back channels and the subwoofer, Sony's audio presentation won't dazzle listeners or push even the most modest of sound systems to their limits, but it's a solid all-around listen that handles Allen's limited soundtrack well enough. Ambience takes the biggest hit; various city atmospherics are confined to the front, as are more pronounced effects such as a steady falling rain as heard in chapter seven. The film's light Jazz-style scoring sounds nicely clear across the front, but the beats of a dance tune as heard in chapter 11 fail to bring that invigorating feel to the proceedings. The film is primarily dialogue-driven, and Sony's soundtrack handles the spoken word quite well, delivering every syllable crisply and efficiently through the center channel. This is a very basic nuts-and-bolts sort of listen, but that's all the film really needs.
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger features only the film's theatrical trailer (1080p, 1:38), BD-Live connectivity, and previews for additional Sony titles.
If nothing else, Woody Allen has assembled a fantastic cast for You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, and all of them play their parts with a genuine feel and passion for the material that always has been and promises to continue to be a hallmark of Allen's films. Hhis upcoming Midnight in Paris sports a cast every bit as good as this one in both name recognition and talent; here's hoping that film is as charming as this one, just with a few of the wrinkles ironed out. As for Tall Dark Stranger, it's a solid all-around effort that even viewers who generally shy away from Allen fare might find some value in, even if only to see a star-studded cast at work. It's also a good representation of what Allen is all about, even if the film does leave behind the good old standby New York setting for a home across the pond. It's typical Allen, and that's not a bad thing at all. Just as good, this Blu-ray release is typical Sony. It might not bring with it any extras (typical Allen), but the video and audio qualities are quite good within the confines of the film's own technical merits. Recommended.
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The Woody Allen Collection
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